The Strange CEO Who Turns Down Millions to Protect Staff | Bitree Corporation Kim Ki-dong Insights
There is a rather peculiar entrepreneur out there—one who possesses an almost uncanny knack for business, yet resolutely refuses to overreach.
When offered a hard-won introduction to a major conglomerate, he walked away after a single meeting, declaring without hesitation, "Taking this contract would work my team into the ground." Yet, whenever an outsider steps into his office, he becomes endlessly lavish in his praise for that same team. In an era rife with cynicism toward small and medium-sized enterprises, his company operates with an almost anomalous warmth—one that truly feels like "family." This is the story of Kim Ki-dong, CEO of Bitree Corporation.
In truth, this interview was driven by 200% personal motivation. Years ago, over a casual morning coffee, I caught the story behind his company’s founding. It left such a deep impression that I quietly waited for the right moment, vowing to one day uncover the full, unfiltered story behind his journey. When the interview finally came to fruition, his office near Samseong Station was even more impressive than expected. Witnessing firsthand the steady, well-deserved fruition of someone who truly earned his success brought a wave of genuine pride and admiration.
Using the interview as an opportunity, I pressed him with everything I had been curious about—including questions that were sensitive, if not uncomfortable. In return, he opened up with staggering candor, laying bare his inner thoughts and the true bedrock of his business.
From a devastating diagnosis of a rare incurable disease in his early twenties to his family's sudden bankruptcy, young Kim Ki-dong was thrust into despair, surviving on just two to three hours of sleep a day while juggling tutoring jobs and day labor. Here is the fierce, honest record of how he built the resilient company that stands today.
Q1. Most people in their early twenties are in college or preparing to enter the workforce. What led you down such a radically different path at the young age of twenty-one?
When I went for a mandatory medical exam while applying for jobs, I was immediately flagged. The moment they saw my blood pressure and blood test results, they didn't even look further—they rejected me on the spot. Because I was categorized as having a rare, incurable condition, companies felt they couldn’t take on the potential liability of a workplace injury. In the end, I was turned down by every single place I applied to. To make matters worse, my father’s business went bankrupt around that same time, saddling our family with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
With career avenues blocked and my family’s finances hitting rock bottom, I was left with zero options. It wasn't a situation where earning a modest monthly paycheck would fix anything. I realized that unless I started my own business, there was simply no way out.
I pushed myself to the absolute limit, sleeping only two to three hours a night. During the day, I taught up to twelve English tutoring sessions for students ranging from elementary schoolers to re-examinees; at night, I sought labor work at day-labor markets. Eventually, as my student count grew to between 40 and 50, parents urged me to set up a small English academy. I also opened a weekend soccer clinic to support my younger brother's athletic aspirations.
Yet, this was an enterprise sustained entirely by consuming my own physical health. While I was able to chip away at the debt, a nagging voice kept echoing in my head: "Can I really survive long-term by grinding myself down like this?"
Q2. You mentioned being rejected immediately during your job applicant physical. What exactly did the doctors tell you back then that left you with no choice but to forge a new path?
I actually discovered I had a rare heart condition—where the right ventricle gradually enlarges—when I underwent surgery after a traffic accident at nineteen. At the time, the doctor calculated the rate of enlargement and effectively gave me a terminal prognosis, saying, "Things will likely become very difficult for you by twenty-three or twenty-four." Since I didn't feel immediate pain, I lived without thinking much about it, but the moment I tried to get a job, that label of a "rare, incurable disease" held me back completely.
Every morning when I opened my eyes, I'd wonder, "Is today the day?" Even after passing twenty-four—the age they said might be my limit—it felt surreal that I was still alive and well. With the constant dread of my heart stopping at any moment weighing on me, I hardly ever slept more than three or four hours throughout my entire twenties. Waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares was a daily occurrence.
It felt as though I was living on borrowed time. Living with that constant sense of dread made the idea of planning a step-by-step career path like everyone else completely unrealistic for me. I needed to survive and make money today. For me, starting a business was never an ambitious gamble; it was my sole lifeline.
Q3. Your academy and soccer clinic were both gaining traction, yet you suddenly closed those first ventures to pursue marketing. Why did you pivot to such a completely different field?
As I ran the academy and soccer clinic day and night, an epiphany hit me: with my limited resources and network, I wasn't going to stumble upon a massive gold mine. However, it suddenly struck me that I could stand at the entrance where people rushed to dig for gold and sell them pickaxes. That pickaxe was marketing. Every business, regardless of industry, needs marketing. I calculated that if I could refine that craft, both my clients and I would thrive.
I liquidated my modest businesses to raise starting capital and headed to Daegu to launch a marketing agency from scratch. But when a twenty-five-year-old showed up offering marketing services, no one trusted me.
I was frequently dismissed as a fraud, and during every initial meeting, prospective clients grilled me about my background. Desperate to avoid being brushed aside due to my youth, I shaved my head, wore loose-fitting suits styled like the older businessmen in Daegu's Seongseo Industrial Complex, and put on a 300,000-won Seiko metal watch. I even claimed to be thirty-two instead of twenty-five, adding seven years to my age just to look older.
During that first year, I pounded the pavement meeting CEOs of Daegu-based franchise headquarters. Once I proved my worth through tangible metrics, they finally opened up to me. While it was bitter to be judged by appearances and met with skepticism over my age, survival was my only priority—so I tackled every task handed to me without a single word of complaint.
Q4. I heard that during the height of your anxiety over your terminal prognosis, you unexpectedly signed up for volunteer work. What was it like stepping into that environment with such a heavy heart?
Even though I was relieved to have survived past twenty-three, every morning when I opened my eyes, the constant anxiety remained: Is today the day? Unable to watch me suffer, a friend urged, "Go out and see people who are fighting hard for their lives," and signed me up on my behalf to volunteer as an English interpreter for the inaugural Daegu Chimac Festival.
I was selected out of nowhere, but the venue during that first year in 2013 was total chaos. Amid sweltering heat, the festival preparations were incomplete, and the air was filled with harsh shouting and cursing. I didn't see a single foreigner, and with nothing but profanities surrounding me, I thought to myself, "Should I just run away tomorrow?"
That evening, a volunteer doing Japanese translation approached me and blurted out, "You look older than the rest of us, and this site is a mess—can you please help us out?" Having observed the floor, the root cause was immediately clear: since it was a beer festival, ID checks were mandatory, but they were running a queue of over 30,000 people through just three laptops.
Drawing on my years of hands-on experience from various odd jobs, I used my smartphone to bypass the IP access restrictions on the administrator webpage and distributed the mobile link to all the volunteers via KakaoTalk. With over twenty people processing IDs on their phones, the bottleneck cleared instantly, and the massive line dissolved.
Seeing this, the organizers were stunned. Once order was restored, they asked who was responsible. That night, they handed me a two-way radio and told me I was the overall field team leader starting the next morning. When I arrived the following day, they introduced me as the head coordinator in front of hundreds of volunteers, throwing me into directing the field. Sweating under the scorching sun, interacting with people, and solving problems on the fly, I felt strangely—and profoundly—alive. That serendipitous connection lasted, and I ended up overseeing that festival field for thirteen years.
Q5. I heard you dive exceptionally deep into Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) metrics. Is there a specific reason for this relentless focus?
If you look at the digital marketing landscape, it is filled with top-tier experts in every niche. There are those who craft stunning creative assets, and others who masterfully navigate machine learning and media-buying mechanics. Yet, whenever you walk into a client meeting, the very first topic that comes up is almost always ROAS. The issue was that despite its importance, everyone approached this critical metric in far too vague and abstract terms.
High ROAS isn't achieved simply by pouring more money into ad spend. While creating compelling ad content is essential, no one was paying attention to what matters most: the underlying revenue structure. For instance, if you take a product selling for 100,000 KRW and optimize its sales flow and revenue model to raise its value to 150,000 KRW, your ROAS skyrockets exponentially even if the advertising performance itself stays constant. Real numbers only move when you dissect every metric down to its core foundation and approach it structurally.
Our work with Sincham Tteokbokki is a prime example. The franchise had been stalled at 110 locations for over a year. We completely overhauled their system—from the acquisition cost of franchisee inquiries to their sales flow and supervisor training programs. With our strategy aligning perfectly with their headquarters' execution, the number of locations surged to 280 in just three months.
Q6. Having consulted for countless SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) CEOs, what has been your biggest takeaway from working directly in the field?
At the risk of sounding critical, many business owners fail to thoroughly examine their own revenue structures. They bring immense passion and skill to sales and business development, but the baseline calculation—"How much does it cost to acquire a single customer, and what is our actual net margin?"—is often flawed. When you pour marketing dollars into a tangled web of unoptimized operations, you have no visibility into profitability, and in reality, you aren't making money at all.
Furthermore, founders tend to be notoriously headstrong. When clients refuse to budge on their opinions despite my persuasions, I let them execute their vision first. Later, I lay out the objective data and review it with them. Looking at the cold numbers, about half will concede: "Ah, now I see why you advised against that." The other half, however, remain in denial, asking, "Aren't these metrics incorrect?"
Back then, given my youth, I often endured condescending remarks like, "Have you ever run a business yourself? What do you actually know?" When clients refused to accept even objective figures, I calmly stepped back, telling them, "It appears my ability to assist you ends here." I chose to build long-term partnerships only with those who were prepared to look at the numbers with clarity and objectivity.
Q7. What was the decisive turning point that led you to abandon your thriving agency’s original name (Breakfast) and business model, risking a full pivot to the AI-based "Bitree"?
For us, the pivot wasn't a grand, heroic risk; it was a natural necessity to survive in an evolving market. Our company has undergone a continuous evolution over time. We initially started as an integrated agency focused on brand awareness through traditional channels like TV and newspapers, then transitioned into a performance agency centered on digital advertising, and eventually evolved into a firm that optimizes the entire customer journey from initial click to final conversion.
Prior to the AI wave hitting South Korea, we were working on a global project to integrate overseas marketing solutions, which allowed us to encounter Google’s and other international AI technologies earlier than most. When we leveraged AI to refine vast marketing datasets and build logical frameworks to isolate revenue correlations, it yielded results far faster and more accurate than humanly possible. I immediately recognized the reality: "If we cling to legacy methods, we have no future. We must transition into a true AX (AI Transformation) company powered by AI technology."
While genius engineers build the core AI engine architectures, the role of a firm like ours is to refine and tailor that technology for field application—driving real sales and generating actual revenue for businesses.
Just as the mobile revolution saw field-level problem solvers like food delivery and ride-hailing apps prevail over companies that simply manufactured smartphones, we bet everything on our "field execution power"—applying AI technology directly to real-world businesses to deliver tangible outcomes.
Q8. Even with powerful tools, implementing AI into corporate settings must have triggered unexpected limitations or failures. Is there a memorable setback that stands out?
In truth, we have far more failures than successes. A prime example occurred mid-last year during a project with a fire insurance firm. The initial enterprise-wide AI implementation—analyzing data and generating reports—was a resounding success. Emboldened by that win, I made an overly ambitious proposal: "Let's have AI agents place direct phone calls to insurance clients." That initiative was an absolute failure.
At the time, the general public harbored a high degree of skepticism and resistance toward AI. The moment clients detected a synthetic voice over the line, suspecting it wasn't a human, they perceived it as a potential voice-phishing attempt or felt off-put and immediately hung up. We had sprinted too far ahead of both the times and consumer readiness.
Simply replacing human tasks with software and slapping an "AI" label on it does not constitute genuine AI Transformation (AX). Flaunting technology alone cannot meaningfully raise corporate productivity or revenue. Ultimately, we learned a vital lesson: the real core lies in reading the market intersection—understanding how seamlessly and comfortably consumers can accept that AI into their experience.
Q9. As a company that helps other enterprises undergo AI transformation, how does Bitree internally utilize AI in its own operations?
As a partner of Claude—an AI solution designed for software development and hands-on execution—we operate in an environment where AI is embedded into the fabric of our daily workflow, spanning team communications, project milestone tracking, and security guideline checks.
In truth, establishing this ecosystem took an entire year of trial and error. Initially, I tried to instruct the staff with a rigid, paint-by-numbers approach: "Phrase your AI prompts like this," or "Make sure you strictly follow this file-saving convention." But when subjected to the pressure of strict manuals, our frontline marketers grew overwhelmed and stopped using AI altogether, bringing our company-wide AI transition to a complete standstill.
So we reversed course 180 degrees. Our tech team established the foundational infrastructure and security safeguards behind the scenes to prevent data leaks, and we gave the staff total freedom to treat AI as an open playground. If a playground slide had a supervisor standing right next to it constantly scolding kids with "Don't slide down like that," no one would want to play. Once we simply set up the safety parameters to prevent injury and let them experiment freely, their potential truly erupted.
The depth and speed of the workload a single practitioner could execute expanded dramatically. Employees began showing off custom AI agents they created themselves, fostering a healthy, self-driven learning culture across the team.
Q10. You have managed numerous overseas expansion projects. What was the most striking gap you experienced between your initial hypotheses and the reality on the ground?
The biggest misconception was thinking: "If we translate Korean marketing copy smoothly into English, it will work abroad." I learned the hard way that deep cultural comprehension far outweighs flashy slogans or eye-catching marketing gimmicks.
A prime example was when we assisted t'order—a tabletop ordering platform—with their expansion into the US market. At first, we failed completely because we focused solely on operational efficiency and faster table turnover. We had overlooked a defining aspect of American dining culture: the tradition of "small talk," where servers greet guests warmly, engage in casual conversation, and build rapport.
We went back to the drawing board to analyze the local culture and completely revamped our messaging. For instance, rather than pushing pure efficiency to Hispanic restaurant owners, we took a relatable approach focused on quality of life: "Reclaim your downtime during lunch break to enjoy a taco and chill."
We also incorporated color palettes familiar to them, such as green and red accents, into our visual design. Only then did inquiry calls start rolling in. It solidified my conviction that success lies not in word-for-word translation, but in how naturally you weave your message into the cultural fabric of your audience.
Q11. Given the nature of the industry, there remains a persistent culture where agencies are treated as mere subcontractors or subordinates rather than experts. How does Bitree maintain its core principles amidst these practices?
Overseas, there is a strong culture of recognizing marketing and tech agencies as subject-matter experts and entrusting them with work based on mutual respect. In South Korea, however, a lingering mindset oddly persists that says, "I paid you, so I can order you around like a subcontractor." I believe this fundamental perception must change. An agency relationship should be a partnership between equals who complement each other's gaps.
That is why we establish crystal-clear boundaries when entering into contracts. We go so far as to include contractual clauses requiring that our team members be treated with personal respect and provided with a healthy working environment. Why should an agency be expected to answer calls on weekends as a matter of course or treat overtime as mandatory? We rarely work overtime. In our industry, people called us crazy, saying, "Working like that is why you aren't making the big money."
Compared to mega-agencies pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars, our revenue size may be smaller. However, we strictly reject a management style that expands scale by grinding down our employees' physical well-being. By building a solid, substantial inner core, I take pride in knowing that our actual profitability and financial health stand toe-to-toe with major industry players.
Q12. Doesn't setting such strict partnership criteria place you at a disadvantage when winning clients, or trigger complaints?
It is actually the exact opposite. Because we set clear boundaries right from the start, we have never once suffered from exhausting conflicts over unreasonable demands, nor have we taken on unready projects only to ruin them. Because the foundation of our firm is resolute, clients recognize our sincerity. As a result, regardless of size, clients who partner with us stay with us for an average of over five years, consistently renewing their contracts.
Even if we don't make flashy headlines, we are convinced this is the right path. Having a clear philosophy is what draws top talent to us—they see that at our firm, they will be respected and empowered as genuine professionals. At the same time, it allows us to continuously meet exceptional clients who appreciate equal partnerships. Ultimately, our true goal is to create a virtuous cycle where our team members and our clients grow healthily together.
Q13. Your firm's cohesive organizational culture is striking. Where do you think Bitree's unique internal unity comes from?
The roots of our organizational culture ultimately trace back to the grounds of the Daegu Chimac Festival. Nearly half of our current team members share a distinct "battle mentality" forged during sweltering summer days in the pouring rain—carrying heavy equipment and managing rowdy crowds. Even when heading into a rainy client meeting, someone will say, "We got drenched at the Chimac Festival—what's a little rain?" That deep, mutual care for one another forms our core.
Our central value is encapsulated in the Korean acronym 'Heon-Bae-Jeon-Sung'—standing for Devotion, Consideration, Professionalism, and Growth—which defines team members who selflessly care for their colleagues while striving together toward peak expertise. Crucially, this solid internal bond translates directly to how we serve our clients.
When a team is composed of individuals who respect their peers and strive to master their fields, they naturally tackle our clients' challenges with total commitment and professionalism, as if they were their own. Because this yields real, tangible results, we have even had client liaisons switch sides and join Bitree because they were so impressed by our culture.
If I were to compromise this culture by blindly chasing revenue out of personal greed, the fabric of our organization would break. That is why we selectively take on projects—focusing on clients who genuinely need our help and initiatives where our team members can immerse themselves with joy to deliver healthy, meaningful results.
Q14. From your first venture launched to support your family to your agency days in Daegu and where you stand today, what is your ultimate destination as an entrepreneur?
Our ultimate destination is crystal clear: "To do the work we truly love, enjoy it to the fullest, and never have to worry about money alongside my team."
Having crossed the threshold of a near-death experience, life became simple. In the end, all that truly remains in life are "people" and your "reputation." While some still look down on agencies as mere subcontractors, we see our true purpose as being an honest partner that solves genuine pain points and enables others to grow.
Bitree has now acquired a powerful asset in AI. Beyond generating short-term revenue spikes, my life's final destination is to lead corporate AI transformation through honest technology and genuine partnership—building a healthy, enduring AX company that stands the test of time.
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